LA County RR/CC Dean Logan and Matt Adams of IDEO speak at the 2015 SxSW Eco on VSAP, the process in developing a new voting system and why it's critical to update LA's aging voting system.

Public officials and members of the public that attended the meeting at Pasadena City Hall (2/16/17) had the opportunity to try out the new prototype voting system. The VSAP team received a lot of good feedback and is excited for the next phase of the project where manufacturing and certification are to take place.

You may find a copy of the agenda for the meeting here: https://ww2.cityofpasadena.net/councilagendas/2017%20Agendas/Feb_16_17/Special%20Joint.asp

Following the Los Angeles County Commission on Disabilities meeting last week (2/15/17), the VSAP team did voting system demonstrations for those that attended. Attendees were given the chance to interact with the prototype and learn about the various features that were developed with input from partners that advocate on behalf of people living with disabilities.

You may find a copy of the agenda for the meeting here: https://file.lacounty.gov/SDSInter/bos/commissionpublications/agenda/1003141_Agenda.pdf

For more information on the Los Angeles County Commission on Disabilities, visit: http://laccod.lacounty.gov/

We are proud to announce that the Voting Systems Assessment Project had been chosen to advance to the next round of competition for the “Innovations in American Government” and the “Roy and Lila Ash Award for Public Engagement in Government”. Since 1986, the Harvard Kennedy School Ash Center for Democratic Governance and Innovation has recognized the most creative and effective government programs in the nation that uses an innovative approach to address important issues of public concern. The Top 25 finalists will be announced in February 2017. The winner will receive extensive press coverage and a monetary grant.

Click here for the official press release:

https://www.lavote.gov/docs/rrcc/news-releases/Harvard-Innovations-Award-Semifinalist.pdf

Musical legend Stevie Wonder came into our headquarters in Norwalk to vote early and while he was here, he was given an impromptu demonstration of the prototype. Wonder interacted with the device using the audio feature and the tactile keypad. He independently listened to instructions, initiated the device, inserted the demonstration ballot, marked the ballot and cast the ballot. His response was very positive and he expressed his support of the project and enthusiasm to seeing it unfold in the near future.

The VSAP team gave a prototype demonstration to the members of Communities Actively Living Independent & Free (Calif) on Tuesday, October 19, 2016. We had a lively discussion of the different components of the new voting experience in Los Angeles County. The members were interested in the various accessibility features of the prototype such as the audio user interface and the interactive sample ballot. The members interacted with the device and experienced a simulated voting experience.

The VSAP team was in full support of the National Voter Registration Day today, September 27^th, at the Norwalk Headquarters. Different organizations, RR/CC staff, and the general public had the opportunity to interact with the voting system prototypes and hear more information about the different components of the future voting experience.

Remember to register to vote and make your mark this coming November election. The last day to register is on October 24^th. Visit www.lavote.gov to register to vote online: https://www.lavote.net/home/voting-elections/voter-registration/register-to-vote/register.

On August 30, 2016, Government Technology Magazine granted the Voting Systems Assessment Project the “Outstanding IT Project Award.” The award recognizes the VSAP's innovative approach to technology design and innovation in the public sector. The award was granted at the Digital Government Summit which took place in Los Angeles, CA.

The VSAP team conducted a voting system demonstration at the United Cerebral Palsy of Los Angeles (UCPLA) in Culver City last August 5, 2016. The clients at UCPLA interacted with the prototype and were introduced the future voting experience in Los Angeles County. We received significant feedback from the organization, and for this, we are grateful to the staff and administrators who made this event possible.

UCPLA has been an active partner and supporter of the project by providing a venue and participants for various research activities. Click here to view UCPLA's Press Release regarding the event: https://www.prweb.com/releases/2016/08/prweb13600825.htm

By Jared Marcotte

I started working in election technology in 2010 and, since then, I've noticed that the landscape doesn't change dramatically. There's the occasional major upgrade or migration from one voting system to another, but the news largely consists of updates and tweaks due to policy changes, and regular maintenance. For a while, I wasn't sure if anything would change. In 2013, Dean Logan asked me to serve on the Voting Systems Assessment Project (VSAP) Technical Advisory Committee (TAC). The more I read about what Los Angeles was doing, I finally saw something new in the landscape: how they were engaging the community, how they'd tapped IDEO and Digital Foundry to work with them, who they'd selected to serve on the committees, how the entire process was centered on the voter. VSAP envisioned the voting process with the voter at the center of the equation and using technology as a means of easing the path to casting a ballot. In fact, VSAP is the culmination of years of hope I've had for the elections community to own their own intellectual property, embrace open source, and focus on well-defined data standards.

Owning Your Own Intellectual Property

Government agencies of all sizes should own their intellectual property. There is an added liability and cost in doing so, but ownership allows election administrators the ability to modify a system to suit voters' needs. VSAP allows Los Angeles to keep their knowledge base in-house and with the people who know more about the voters, election laws, and system than any outside entity. Los Angeles County will soon join the ranks of only a handful of jurisdictions that have directly developed the systems they use to run elections.

Embracing Open Source

In the public sector, open source software is still viewed with some skepticism. The private sector realized over the years that some of the issues they were trying to solve—internet security, for example—were problems that were necessary to solve in a collective, crowdsourced fashion. Though open source has been a building block for companies like Amazon Web Services, Netflix, Google, and countless others, open source has taken much longer to gain traction in the public sector. VSAP is looking at these technologies as a core part of the new system, which is a win for Los Angeles residents as these solutions make use of the best engineering of the private sector with no initial development cost to the taxpayer.

Well-Defined Data Standards

In addition to leveraging open source development, VSAP also gives back to the open source and election communities. There is so much unsung work being done on VSAP, largely because it exists on the periphery of the public consciousness. The National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST), under the direction of the Election Assistance Commission (EAC), started working groups to help establish standards for the various types of elections data and processes. While VSAP will rightfully focus on the needs of the voters, it has and will continue to participate in these standards efforts as collaboration benefits the entire elections community. One of the most impressive artifacts that Los Angeles County has contributed to the standards effort is a collection of models of all the processes for which election administrators are responsible. These processes are activities such as handling absentee ballots, registering voters, and publishing election results, to name a few. It could be argued that this model should be the core of any standard, as it's impossible to standardize what you have yet to fully understand.

Transition

As VSAP enters the final stage of the project, there are still challenges that lie ahead, but VSAP—embodied by the infinitely talented team at the Los Angeles County Registrar-Recorder/County Clerk, the TAC, and the teams at IDEO and Digital Foundry—is more than capable to take on any obstacle. My hope is other states and jurisdictions see these three facets of the VSAP project at tenets to adopt.

It's been humbling and an honor to serve as a member of the TAC. I'm excited to see where the journey leads and how it positively impacts the elections community.

Jared Marcotte is a member of the VSAP Technical Advisory Committee.